High blood pressure appears to be associated with an increased risk for mild cognitive impairment, a condition that involves difficulties with thinking and learning, according to a report in December issues of Archives of Neurology

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By simply eating four or more servings of green salad a week and working in the garden once or twice a week, smokers and nonsmokers alike may be able to substantially reduce the risk of developing lung cancer, say researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

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An international team of researchers has shown how mutations in the BRCA1 gene lead to breast cancer. Findings show that one way BRCA1 mutations cause cancer is by knocking out a powerful tumor suppressor gene known as PTEN.

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Elementary schools can have a significant impact on low-income students’ consumption of fruits and vegetables by providing a lunch salad bar, according to a recent UCLA study. The findings, published in the December issue of the international journal Public Health Nutrition, show that the frequency of students’ fruit and vegetable consumption increased significantly—from 2.97 to 4.09 times daily—after a salad bar was introduced. In addition, students’ mean daily intake of energy, cholesterol, saturated fat and total fat declined considerably.

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In a recent study, mice implanted with living embryonic cardiac cells became resistant to cardiac arrhythmias, which are one of the most dangerous and fatal consequences of heart attacks. The discovery, reported in this week’s issue of Nature, has profound implications for using cell-transplant therapies to restore damaged heart tissue.

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The next cancer-fighting therapeutic could be growing in your garden, according to research presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s Sixth Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research.

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Scientists know that the drug ketamine—street name “Special K”—can induce schizophrenia-like symptoms in drug abusers. Ketamine is also used as an anesthetic and, more recently, as an antidepressant—raising concerns by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, who have found that ketamine leads to the impairments in brain circuitry observed in both drug abusers and schizophrenic patients by causing increased production of a toxic free radical called “superoxide.”

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There is a growing debate over the necessity and number of vaccines administered to the U.S. population. The controversy often surrounds a number of issues, such as pharmaceutical company lobbying to require administration of vaccinations that critics say have not undergone adequate testing. FULL STORY »

A new model for calculating invasive breast cancer risk, called the CARE model, has been found to give better estimates of the number of breast cancers that would develop in African American women 50 to 79 years of age than an earlier model which was based primarily on data from white women. Both models were designed to be used by health care professionals and should either be used by them or in consultation with them. Researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and their collaborators report on the study methodology and results online in JNCI.

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According to a recent study by the National Institutes of Health, pre-menopausal women with even mild depression have less bone mass than do their nondepressed peers, The level of bone loss is at least as high as that associated with recognized risk factors for osteoporosis, including smoking, low calcium intake, and lack of physical activity.

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